Author Topic: 50 Books in 2018!  (Read 115557 times)

Urchina

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #250 on: March 09, 2018, 07:03:57 PM »
1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson
3. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
4. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (re-read in one night since it's been 20 years and my son was reading it in school)
8. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
9. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
10. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

11. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
12. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
13. All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare (I WILL get through his complete works...eventually).

FireHiker, you're on a classics kick! Just reading your list makes me feel like I need to upgrade the quality of literature I'm reading....

As for that, here's my updated list:
1. How not to die by Michael Greger md. Book espousing a plant-based (vegan) diet.
2. Now that you mention it by Kristan Higgins - more romance!
3. Unprocessed by Megan Kimble. A thoughtful "year-of" book in which she eats only unprocessed food for 12th months, and uses it as a vehicle for discovery and discussion about our food systems.
4. My year of less by Cait Flanders (audiobook). Another "year-of" book in which the author documents her year of a shopping ban. A thoughtful and sometimes heart-wrenching exploration of our urges to consume and how to find balance despite them. I'm going to adapt this approach for Lent this year.
5. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. Fun, Victorian/steampunk/magic book about a plucky, sassy protagonist Librarian who works for the Library and rescues books from alternate worlds. First in a promising series.
6. On Second Thought by Krista Higgins (more romance)
7. Redshirts by John Scalzi. Odd take on televised sci-fi series and characters with different lives in alternate realities. Quirky and fun.
8. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. (Audiobook) Focuses on the unconscious snap judgements and decisions that shape our lives.
9. The Art of War by Sun Tzu. (Audiobook). Talk about a tiny book that packs a LOT into very few words. May win "most concise comprehensive treatise on a complicated subject ever" award. I realize that reading or listening to it once is not going to be enough. This one warrants careful study and re-reading over a very long time (maybe a lifetime would be long enough -- but I'm not sure).

Currently reading / listening to:
Good Clean Fun by Nick Offerman (a paean to his love of woodworking and quite enjoyable, I'm listening to the Audiobook as I commute)
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. Yet again, a book has made me realize realize I.Know.Nothing about the rest of the world and its literary or cultural history. Nothing. Worth the time just for that.

Serendip

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #251 on: March 10, 2018, 02:43:14 PM »

Currently reading / listening to:
Good Clean Fun by Nick Offerman (a paean to his love of woodworking and quite enjoyable, I'm listening to the Audiobook as I commute)
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. Yet again, a book has made me realize realize I.Know.Nothing about the rest of the world and its literary or cultural history. Nothing. Worth the time just for that.

Isn't that what books are great for @Urchina --mind-blowing, world-expanding potential! I will have to see if I can get my hands on the librarian one :)

1. Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment (Robert Wright) *IMO very good!
2. Plastic Free : How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too (Beth Terry)
3. Taking the Leap : Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears (Pema Chodron)
4. Sapiens : A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Hurari)*

5. Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement (Katy Bowman)
6. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (Margareta Magnusson)
7. The Year of Less  (Cait Flanders)
 *more personal drama than I expected, I thought it would be about her no-shopping challenge

8. The Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection (Scott C. Anderson) *quite liked this, neuroscience and food
9. Why Isn't My Brain Working: Brain decline and effective strategies to recover your brain's health ( Datis Kharrazian)
10. The Back of the Turtle (Thomas King) * realized I hadn't read any fiction so I picked this one from the library. The Governor General's award winner and an interesting eco-drama, well written..makes me want to find more fiction!

11. The War of Art  (Steven Pressfield)
12. Millionaire Teacher: The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School (Andrew Hallam) *someone on this forum recommended this to learn about investing..got a little swamped down in it
13. Homo Deus : A Brief History of Tomorrow (Yuval Noah Harari)--still reading this one: the follow-up to Sapiens

14. Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression--and the Unexpected Solutions (Johann Hari) -recommended by my sister who is writing a paper on anxiety/depression, quite good.
15. Spark : The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain  (John J. Ratey)--I read a LOT about the brain..neuro-junkie..
16. Tonglen: The Path of Transformation (Pema Chodron)--a more advanced meditation style than I am currently at


Urchina

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #252 on: March 10, 2018, 04:50:16 PM »
@Serendip -- Yes! I feel like a library is ten thousand magic doors, waiting to be opened to ten thousand magic worlds where I'll learn something new each time. I love it!

On a side note -- how did you like the plastic-free book by Beth Terry? I'm considering kicking the plastic habit (so tired of taking out all the recycling) and am wondering if it's well-done and handles the trickier aspects (like personal care items) well. Would you recommend it?


Rosy

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #253 on: March 11, 2018, 10:28:56 AM »
1. Four Weddings and a Sixpence by Julia Quinn ...
2. Elites of Eden by Joey Graceffa
3. Children of Exile by Margaret Peterson Haddix
4. Children of Refuge
5. Heartless by Mary Balogh
6. Son by Lois Lowry
7. Lady Sophia's Lover by Lisa Kleypas
8. Lady of Sin by Madeline Hunter
9. A Precious Jewel by Mary Balogh
10. A Secret Affair by Mary Balogh
11. Nine Rules to Break when Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean
12. Only Enchanting by Mary Balogh
13. Only a Kiss by Mary Balogh
14. Irresistible by Mary Balogh

15. The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch - Part of a Fantasy Series - Curious mixture of brilliant insightfulness, heavy use of base cuss words, easy-flowing adventure dialog with clever stories and an entire archaic play a la Shakespeare alongside the adventure story. Enjoyed it even though it was a tough read at times, but will not read another book by this author - even though I greatly enjoyed the storyline.

16. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - I read this eons ago and it always stayed with me - re-reading was just as good - food for thought.
17. The Inheritance by Charles Finch - Fun read - historic setting, quintessentially British, leisurely developed mystery.

18. A Summer To Remember by Mary Balogh - love historical romances by Mary Balogh.
21. Armada by Ernest Cline - YA - fantasy-sci-fi - OK for YA
22. Sweet Ruin - by Kresley Cole - lots of steamy sex scenes, good Fantasy plot and a little bit of other world development. Fun at first but the soft porn aspect killed it for me.
23. Pleasure of a Dark Prince by Kresley Cole - same as above.
24. MacRieve by Kresley Cole - same as above.
These three are part of the Immortal Series - wish he/she would write more plot, less sex. Not reading anything else by this author.
25. The Wicked Duke by Madeline Hunter - forgot I read this one before - I like all Madeline Hunter historical romances.
27. The Temporary Wife by Mary Baloght - loved it
28. A Promise of Spring by Mary Balogh - loved it
29. Truthwitch by Susan Dennard - first book in a series - pretty good
30. Knave of Hearts by Elizabeth Boyle - enjoyed it


SUBSET - Money and/or Finance/Economics/Politics/Society/Science (goal of 15 books)
19. How to Retire with Enough Money by Theresa Ghilarducci - interesting read. Discusses social security and medicare/medicaid in some detail, but more in an abstract economical sense and talks a bit about the economic disparity and possible improvements to social security - good read, good points. 

20. Cheaper, Better, Faster by  Mary Hunt - Excellent Money Saving Tips for household and car buying ... common sense, DIY - worth a read.

26. The Behavior Gap by Carl Richards - Loved it! It is a quasi MMM philosophy seen from a different, kinder angle. The author is engagingly human and utterly relatable - he called it a book about how you can make good money decisions. He is a CFP  ... identify your personal behavior gaps and make a plan to avoid them in the future. No investment advice but a compelling read about our money fears. Insightful - caused me to reflect on several topics. Lighthearted book with a positive vibe - recommended, especially if you struggle with the harsher demands of MMM:)

31. The Unbanking of America by Lisa Servon - fascinating read. I had no idea fintech was so active in this area and had never heard of tandas or ROSCAS.
The subtitle is How the New Middle Class Survives and while I do not agree with all of the conclusions drawn - it revealed just how predatory the banks have become ...  Well worth a read for all the insightful information - highly recommended.

Still reading ...  I started out on page 121 with - Chapter 7 - Borrowing and Saving under the Radar:) and so far my only complaint is that since this book is a mix of live research and historic and current data - she should have started out with some of the more interesting live research, because I found the first two chapters a tad tedious, although I understand that she wanted to anchor her findings in past and current studies.
She even makes a convincing case for payday lenders later in the book - of all things, right?
The chapters on Milleniums are still ahead, should be interesting.

Overall a truly enlightening book - much better read than I expected!

32. Next up - Nasty women - a collection of essays-protest and solidarity in Trump's America.

Urchina

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #254 on: March 11, 2018, 03:16:22 PM »
Yesterday was gray and rainy -- with just enough rain to be actually rainy (such a rarity here) but not so much that I was anxious about debris flows or flooding. What a gift! Since we've all been feeling low, we all stayed inside with cuddly blankets, hot chocolate/tea and COL (cats on laps) and read. It was marvelous!

Due to that lovely chunk of afternoon and evening reading time, I finished a book and got to start on another. Hence the update:

1. How not to die by Michael Greger md. Book espousing a plant-based (vegan) diet.
2. Now that you mention it by Kristan Higgins - more romance!
3. Unprocessed by Megan Kimble. A thoughtful "year-of" book in which she eats only unprocessed food for 12th months, and uses it as a vehicle for discovery and discussion about our food systems.
4. My year of less by Cait Flanders (audiobook). Another "year-of" book in which the author documents her year of a shopping ban. A thoughtful and sometimes heart-wrenching exploration of our urges to consume and how to find balance despite them. I'm going to adapt this approach for Lent this year.
5. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. Fun, Victorian/steampunk/magic book about a plucky, sassy protagonist Librarian who works for the Library and rescues books from alternate worlds. First in a promising series.
6. On Second Thought by Krista Higgins (more romance)
7. Redshirts by John Scalzi. Odd take on televised sci-fi series and characters with different lives in alternate realities. Quirky and fun.
8. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. (Audiobook) Focuses on the unconscious snap judgements and decisions that shape our lives.
9. The Art of War by Sun Tzu. (Audiobook). Talk about a tiny book that packs a LOT into very few words. May win "most concise comprehensive treatise on a complicated subject ever" award. I realize that reading or listening to it once is not going to be enough. This one warrants careful study and re-reading over a very long time (maybe a lifetime would be long enough -- but I'm not sure).
10. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. Yet again, a book has made me realize realize I.Know.Nothing about the rest of the world and its literary or cultural history. Nothing. Worth the time just for that. However, it's an excellent story in its own right and well-told. Recommend.

Currently reading / listening to:
Good Clean Fun by Nick Offerman (a paean to his love of woodworking and quite enjoyable, I'm listening to the Audiobook as I commute)..
Independence Days by Sharon Astyk. She is a writer who focuses on appropriate technology to help us navigate the changing foodways and communities that are coming with global climate change. This is nominally a book about food preservation, but is actually much more than that, as Astyk is literate, humane and relevant in her writings, which are targeted towards everyday people who want to strengthen and benefit from their communities. This is my second time through this book and I'd love to see it more widely read.

tnrunner

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #255 on: March 12, 2018, 06:09:05 AM »
1. Two for the Dough by Janet Evanovich
2. Three to get deadly by Janet Evanovich
3. Four to Score by Janet Evanovich
4. Seamless by Angie Smith
5. High Five by Janet Evanovich
6. Hot six by Janet Evanovich
7. Seven up by Janet Evanovich
8. hard eight by janet evanovich

9. Daring to Hope by Katie Davis Majors

diapasoun

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #256 on: March 12, 2018, 11:24:38 AM »
@Urchina, I really enjoyed the Bad-ass Librarians of Timbuktu. I audiobooked it and had a great time.

Jealous of your rainy reading! We had some rain earlier last week but ended up watching Harry Potter movies instead of reading...

FireHiker

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #257 on: March 12, 2018, 12:06:12 PM »
1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson
3. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
4. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (re-read in one night since it's been 20 years and my son was reading it in school)
8. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
9. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
10. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
11. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
12. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
13. All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare (I WILL get through his complete works...eventually)

14. As You Like It by William Shakespeare
15. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
16. Here in Berlin by Cristina Garcia

FireHiker, you're on a classics kick! Just reading your list makes me feel like I need to upgrade the quality of literature I'm reading....

Well, I'm trying to get through the List Challenges "100 BBC books" list. I have 26 left. I do record the Shakespeare individually though, so it's a lot more than 26 I guess, as "Complete Works of Shakespeare" only counts for one on that list. Also, I really like the classics! But I like plenty of non-classics too; I did start my year with Ready Player One after all. :) I wish I were retired already so I could spend hours reading every day!

Raenia

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #258 on: March 12, 2018, 03:50:57 PM »
1. The Small-Scale Poultry Flock - Harvey Ussery (1/9/2018)
2. Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson (1/19/2018)
3. The 4-hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss (1/21/2018)
4. Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg (1/23/2018)
5. Home Cheese Making - Ricki Carroll (1/25/2018)
6. A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab (1/26/2018)
7. Dead of Winter - Matt Lake, Susan Fair, Laurie Hull, H.W. Lawson, Brian Goodman (1/27/2018)
8. Coraline - Neil Gaiman (1/30/2018)
9. The Not So Big House - Sarah Susanka (2/5/2018)
10. Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (2/21/2018)
11. Purity - Jonathan Franzen (2/22/2018)
12.  Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville (2/27/2018)
13. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (3/4/2018)
14. Running & Being: The Total Experience - George Sheehan (3/7/2018)

15. Leviathan Wakes - James S.A. Corey (3/10/2018)

I feel like I'm falling behind - I always used to be a fast reader, but you guys are blowing me out of the water!  Maybe I should choose shorter books... ;)
« Last Edit: March 12, 2018, 04:46:33 PM by Raenia »

eliza

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #259 on: March 12, 2018, 06:28:31 PM »
1. The Duel - Anton Chekhov
2. The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden
3. The Unwomanly Face of War - Svetlana Alexievich
4. Lost and Found in Russia: Lives in the Post-Soviet Landscape - Susan Richards
5. Dressed Up for a Riot: Misadventures in Putin's Moscow - Michael Idov

Currently Reading:
A History of Russia - Nicholas Riasanovsky
Secondhand Time - Svetlana Alexievich

ahptex

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #260 on: March 12, 2018, 07:36:02 PM »

(1) Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
(2) A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
(3) The Water Will Come by Jeff Goodell
(4) Wildwood by Colin Meloy
(5) Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin
(6) Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve by Lenora Chu
(7) Family Matters:Why Homeschooling Makes Sense by David Guterson
(8) Street of Eternal Happiness:  Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road by Rob Schmitz
(9) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
(10) The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
(11) Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits by Pema Chodron
(12) The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin
(13) The Year of Less by Cait Flanders
(14) Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
(15) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

(16) The End of Alzheimer's by Dale Bredesen

Off the Wheel

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #261 on: March 12, 2018, 10:55:11 PM »
1. Leviathan Wakes - James Corey
2. Caliban's War - James Corey
3. Abaddon's  Gate - James Corey
4. The Sun & Her Flowers - Rupi Kaur (broke up the space opera with some feminist poetry)
5. Cibola Burn - James Corey
6. Nemesis Game - James Corey
7. Babylon's Ashes - James Corey
8. Excess Male - Maggie Shen King --> interesting premise. Ok execution. I was hoping for more.
9. The Power - Naomi Alderman --> another interesting premise, ok execution. Ending makes up for it though.
10. The Rook - Daniel O'Malley --> fun fantasy mystery.
11. The Lost Plot - Genevieve Cogman --> this is apparently the 4th in a series, and how I missed a fantasy series where the heroine is a sassy Librarian (and where the librarians have special powers!) I will never know.
12. The History of Bees - Maja Lunde --> ok. "Climate change fiction" (cli-fi) which I find hard to read. A little too real.
13. The Masked City - Genevieve Cogman --> didn't like this one much at all.
14. Persepolis Rising - James Corey --> the most recent in the Expanse series! LOVED IT. So sad there are no more to read. May have to pick up the other series from the authors.
15. Nocturnal Animals (aka Tony & Susan) by Austin Wright --> picked up on a whim because the movie was supposed to be good. A very strange, interesting but upsetting book. One of those novels where the characters are pretty awful and what they portend about humanity is not very good.
16. Prep by Curtis Sittenfield. I LOVE teen drama, when well written, and this is that. I don't know how I missed it.
17. The Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll. Not as ogod as the Sittenfield, but still enjoyed it. Also, reading both of these back to back brought to a very visceral teenage place. I am terrified to ever have a teenage girl.
18. I'll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson. Lovely story about family and art.
19. Spontaneous by Aaron Starmer. Interesting premise, funny to read, but a bit trite and the ending was underwhelming.
20. Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick. Light and easy, but not bad for a celebrity memoir.
21. The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman. I LOVED His Dark Materials trilogy. It inspired my interest in religious studies, and my obsession with the Northern Lights. And yet... this was boring. I was hoping for so much more.

Bracken_Joy

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #262 on: March 13, 2018, 09:25:24 AM »
1. A Torch Against The Night- Sabaa Tahir- 1/8/18
--I cannot wait until the next one. Excellent books.
2. Hounded - Kevin Hearne - 1/17/18
3. Hexed - Kevin Hearne- 1/23/18
--fun short reads. Doritos for the brain. Not quite as good as Dresden, but still entertaining.
4. Hammered- Kevin Hearne- 2/9/18
--this one wasn't quite as good at the first two, but it was readable. Hope the next is better again.
5. Lab Girl- Hope Jahren- 2/24/18
--God this took me forever. It just was not compelling for me. Got better at the half way point, but just not my cup of tea. My book club all loved it, though, so maybe I'm alone on this one! I think it would be way more interesting to people who haven't worked in research before, because it'd be 'exploring an unknown life' style.
6. Tricked- Kevin Hearne- 3/2/18
7. World War Z- Max Brooks - 3/5/18
--As always (it was a reread for book club), an excellent book.
8. Trapped- Kevin Hearne - 3/12/18

9. Hunted- Kevin Hearne

(Ahhh I'm behind 3 books from where I want to be. This sucks. I blame Lab Girl)

jeninco

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #263 on: March 13, 2018, 07:10:12 PM »
1. A Torch Against The Night- Sabaa Tahir- 1/8/18
--I cannot wait until the next one. Excellent books.
2. Hounded - Kevin Hearne - 1/17/18
3. Hexed - Kevin Hearne- 1/23/18
--fun short reads. Doritos for the brain. Not quite as good as Dresden, but still entertaining.
4. Hammered- Kevin Hearne- 2/9/18
--this one wasn't quite as good at the first two, but it was readable. Hope the next is better again.
5. Lab Girl- Hope Jahren- 2/24/18
--God this took me forever. It just was not compelling for me. Got better at the half way point, but just not my cup of tea. My book club all loved it, though, so maybe I'm alone on this one! I think it would be way more interesting to people who haven't worked in research before, because it'd be 'exploring an unknown life' style.
6. Tricked- Kevin Hearne- 3/2/18
7. World War Z- Max Brooks - 3/5/18
--As always (it was a reread for book club), an excellent book.
8. Trapped- Kevin Hearne - 3/12/18

9. Hunted- Kevin Hearne

(Ahhh I'm behind 3 books from where I want to be. This sucks. I blame Lab Girl)

Oh, dear -- it was in the batch I just took out of the library a few hours ago. On your recommendation, even!

jeninco

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #264 on: March 13, 2018, 07:12:55 PM »
Quote from: jeninco on March 04, 2018, 09:52:22 PM
1. An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sachs
2. Song of the Quarkbeast, Fford
3. David and Goliath, Gladwell
4. Why Buddhism is True, Wright
5. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain
6. B is for Burglar, Sue Grafton
7. Siddhartha, Hesse
8. Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, Harari
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime,  Haddon. Talked about this with a high school student on my way out of tutoring last week, and grabbed it to (re-) read so I can ask him about it more next week. Love it!
10. Glass Houses (librarian recommendation when I asked for something lightweight)
11. Lavinia, Le Guin
12. Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card (Yack)
13. Debt Free U (I liked it! Lots of good ideas and perspective in here.)

Not going to read: Delusions of Gender Got 1/3 of the way through, and I give up.

Next up:
How to Train a Fox
Lab Girl
an Octavia Butler novel.

I'm on pace for 4.5 books per month -- it feels like a lot of reading!

diapasoun

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #265 on: March 14, 2018, 11:10:24 AM »
@jeninco, which Octavia Butler do you have on docket? (I'm only a short way through her bibliography and oh my, she is goooood.)

Bracken_Joy

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #266 on: March 14, 2018, 01:41:14 PM »
@jeninco I'm sorry! =o Maybe it'll go faster for you. I think I had some mental blocks on some of the subject matter that slowed me waaaaay down. It is a moderately long book though, so it's not a fast read per se, but it's also not so involved that it takes a lot of 'stop and digest' time.

jeninco

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #267 on: March 14, 2018, 02:24:45 PM »
@jeninco, which Octavia Butler do you have on docket? (I'm only a short way through her bibliography and oh my, she is goooood.)

Fledgling. Through the first four chapters, and it's really good.

I'm alternating back and forth with How to Train a Fox, which is about the Russian experiment to breed domesticated foxes and is fascinating. Plus, adorable photos of baby domesticated foxes - Aww! Now I totally want a domesticated fox (except I recall reading that 1) they're tough to house-train, and 2) they spray and scent-mark stuff.).

Hopefully Lab Girl goes faster: I'm actually a couple of books ahead of pace, so my plan is to mix in some slower reads that I've been meaning to get to. (Plus, I'm over the hurdle of reading part of a book and deciding not to finish it, so if I really dislike it, that's OK too. I mean, I'm 50 -- I don't have all the time in the world to read books I'm not enjoying, you know?)

(OK, funny side note: my book club once read Saramago's The Cave. I got 100 pages in, (with no punctuation, paragraph breaks, or quotation marks or other indications of dialogue) and announced to the friend who's recommended it that I was done. She told me I HAD to finish it, that the ending was SO AMAZING!!! So I thought about it for a while, then read the last 50 pages. The ending was, indeed, so amazing that I went back and read the intervening several hundred pages. So I guess I recommend it, but it's not a fast read...)

woopwoop

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #268 on: March 14, 2018, 02:31:43 PM »
1. Cane River - this was for a book club, which is the only reason I finished it. Five hundred pages of depressing slavery historical fiction, ranging from super depressing slave rape and torture to slightly-less-depressing institutional racism by the end of the saga. Would not recommend.
2. The Road Less Traveled - this is a psychology cult classic from the 70s that's fun to read. In one chapter he mentions in a footnote that "the only healthy marriage is an open marriage." Lol, the seventies were awesome.
3. Down Among the Sticks and Bones - a well-written and darkly funny YA fantasy novella. Think CS Lewis with vampires.
4. The Hating Game - this was just a bubble gum contemporary romcom about a love-hate-love relationship. Super fast and sexy read, recommended as a nice beach read if you like romance.
5. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue - How did I end up reading so much YA at the beginning of this year? I don't even particularly like YA, these were all recommended to me. This was a fun romp of pirates and highwaymen and gay interracial relationships in the 1800s, but it was very very YA. I can't even put my finger on what "Very YA" means, but whatever it was, this book was that. My next read is YA, too, then I think I'm done for a while. I think it's the quirkiness that gets me. Everyone is so goddamn quirky in YA books.
6. Jane Unlimited - ugh, another YA, this one with a quirky main character who makes artsy umbrellas. Four mentions of Doctor Who in the first half of the book, how weird and nerdy lolol!!! I'm so done with YA.
7. Dead Wake - okay, this one is historical fiction about the Lusitania. I don't know history so this is always good for me. Plus Erik Larsen is the tits, this was a guaranteed Good Book after my latest string of failures. This book is not quite as good as his epicly awesome Devil in the White City that I love love loved, but it's still good and suspenseful.
8.The Duke and I - Regency romance, definitely more erotic than Jane Austen. Fun and light but not particularly great. Recommended all over the place as one of the best contemporary-written regency romances, which probably means I just don't really like this genre. I love Jane Austen, though, oh well.
9.Paris To the Moon - Another French travelogue about an American moving his family to Paris. Funny, well-written, but not epically hilarious like my favorite of this genre, Toujours Provence.
10. Drop the Ball - nonfiction, about how women need to stop trying to do it all. Kind of a companion book to Lean In, which I also didn't like. This book just feels repetitive. It did get my husband and I to make a spreadsheet for our grocery lists, though.
11. A Man Called Ove - another book club read, I guess it was a movie? Anyway, it made me ugly cry at the end although the opening chapters were hard for me to get into. Old grumpy man inspirational lit, I would classify it.
12. The Artist's Way - I am not in the right spot to get into this kind of book, in that I have a toddler and would love to do "morning pages" but it's clear from the way this author writes that she cannot imagine not having alone time every day. Well, bully for her. I'll pick this back up in a few years.
13. Designs for Living and Learning - really great book about childhood learning environments. Gave me a bunch to think about as I create living spaces for my young toddler.
14. Voyage  -a play by Tom Stoppard that's a witty sendup of every Russian play from the greats. Lots of philosophizing and wordplay, but not nearly as entertaining as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which everyone should read (and watch the movie version!) if they have ever read Hamlet. For you Game of Thrones fans out there, Jorah is Hamlet, and that should seal the deal. He also wrote Shakespeare in Love which was a fun screenplay.
15. Chrysalis - nonfiction, an account of female naturalist Maria Meriam. The book I'm writing is going to have a main character named after her, so I thought I'd do some research. Really interesting so far, she was a gifted artist and scientist back when science was stuck more in naming and classifying rather than experimenting. Makes me excited to write my book!
16. The Kingmaker's Daughter - historical fiction by the same woman who wrote The Other Boleyn Girl which I loved. This was a great book, made even greater by the fact that I don't know any history at all. What will happen to Anne and Richard? I don't know, it's a mystery! Makes reading historical fiction all the better, imo.
16b. The Shadow of the Wind - I... really didn't like this. I didn't even finish it, so that's why it's going on the list as 16b. Just awful, pretentious writing. Maybe it's the translation? I had high hopes and a lot of people recommended it, but I found it utterly lacking.
17. The Refrigerator Monologues - On recommendation by this thread. I didn't really care for this one, maybe because I don't know an awful lot about comics. Most of the characters had the same voice, there weren't any great new perspectives. I dunno, I might have been in the wrong frame of mind for this.

diapasoun

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #269 on: March 14, 2018, 03:36:40 PM »
@jeninco, which Octavia Butler do you have on docket? (I'm only a short way through her bibliography and oh my, she is goooood.)

Fledgling. Through the first four chapters, and it's really good.

I'm alternating back and forth with How to Train a Fox, which is about the Russian experiment to breed domesticated foxes and is fascinating. Plus, adorable photos of baby domesticated foxes - Aww! Now I totally want a domesticated fox (except I recall reading that 1) they're tough to house-train, and 2) they spray and scent-mark stuff.).

That's my boyfriend's favorite Butler -- I really need to pick up his company soon.

I didn't know there was a book about the Russian domesticated foxes! I'm going to have to put that on my list now. I saw a bit of a documentary/show on them once and was fascinated.

17. The Refrigerator Monologues - On recommendation by this thread. I didn't really care for this one, maybe because I don't know an awful lot about comics. Most of the characters had the same voice, there weren't any great new perspectives. I dunno, I might have been in the wrong frame of mind for this.

That's probably from my rec, haha. I do think that a strong comics background helps. I also think Cat Valente is an acquired taste for some folks. I love her stuff, but I really love labyrinthine writing with odd and/or complicated prose.

I definitely agree that there weren't really any new perspectives on fridged women in comics -- it's more of a distillation of what a lot folks have talked about. I enjoyed the distillation, but if I'd been looking for new perspectives, I would have been pretty disappointed.

jeninco

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #270 on: March 15, 2018, 02:34:42 PM »
@jeninco, which Octavia Butler do you have on docket? (I'm only a short way through her bibliography and oh my, she is goooood.)

Fledgling. Through the first four chapters, and it's really good.

I'm alternating back and forth with How to Train a Fox, which is about the Russian experiment to breed domesticated foxes and is fascinating. Plus, adorable photos of baby domesticated foxes - Aww! Now I totally want a domesticated fox (except I recall reading that 1) they're tough to house-train, and 2) they spray and scent-mark stuff.).

That's my boyfriend's favorite Butler -- I really need to pick up his company soon.

I didn't know there was a book about the Russian domesticated foxes! I'm going to have to put that on my list now. I saw a bit of a documentary/show on them once and was fascinated.


Fledgling was so very good! I've already finished it --I didn't get much sleep last night, or much work done today. And so, so very yummy mixed with the fox book -- all "what obligations do we have toward those whom we domesticate?" and "What does it mean to be domesticated, anyhow?" and "What sort of gene expression leads to domestication?"

Serendip

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #271 on: March 15, 2018, 09:19:05 PM »
@Serendip -- Yes! I feel like a library is ten thousand magic doors, waiting to be opened to ten thousand magic worlds where I'll learn something new each time. I love it!

On a side note -- how did you like the plastic-free book by Beth Terry? I'm considering kicking the plastic habit (so tired of taking out all the recycling) and am wondering if it's well-done and handles the trickier aspects (like personal care items) well. Would you recommend it?

Sorry @Urchina , just saw this question now! The book is pretty good.  Basic and uses lots of pictures & stories to get the point across. I didn't really love it but since it was available at my library it was worth the read!
And ten thousand magic door about to be opened is a fantastic way to describe the library :) A librarian would be proud.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2018, 09:27:10 PM by Serendip »

Serendip

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #272 on: March 15, 2018, 09:26:14 PM »
1. Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment (Robert Wright) *IMO very good!
2. Plastic Free : How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too (Beth Terry)
3. Taking the Leap : Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears (Pema Chodron)
4. Sapiens : A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Hurari)

5. Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement (Katy Bowman)
6. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (Margareta Magnusson)
7. The Year of Less  (Cait Flanders)
 *more personal drama than I expected, I thought it would be about her no-shopping challenge

8. The Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection (Scott C. Anderson) *quite liked this, neuroscience and food
9. Why Isn't My Brain Working: Brain decline and effective strategies to recover your brain's health ( Datis Kharrazian)
10. The Back of the Turtle (Thomas King)

11. The War of Art  (Steven Pressfield)
12. Millionaire Teacher: The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School (Andrew Hallam)
13. Homo Deus : A Brief History of Tomorrow (Yuval Noah Harari)

14. Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression--and the Unexpected Solutions (Johann Hari)
15. Spark : The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain  (John J. Ratey)
16. Tonglen: The Path of Transformation (Pema Chodron)--a more advanced meditation style than I am currently at

17. The Hate U Give (Angie Thomas) --fiction, quite a good/fast read. I am going to aim for 1 fiction/month
18. When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing (Daniel. H. Pink)

ringer707

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #273 on: March 16, 2018, 07:50:50 AM »
1. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
2. The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini
3. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
4. How to Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway
5. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
6. Between the World and Me by Ta Nahisi Coates
7. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
8. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
9. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis
10. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Illustrated) by J.K. Rowling
11. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
12. Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
13. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
14. Beloved by Toni Morrison
15. What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

Still working my way through The Mists of Avalon... only 47% done.

tnrunner

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #274 on: March 16, 2018, 09:44:25 AM »
1. Two for the Dough by Janet Evanovich
2. Three to get deadly by Janet Evanovich
3. Four to Score by Janet Evanovich
4. Seamless by Angie Smith
5. High Five by Janet Evanovich
6. Hot six by Janet Evanovich
7. Seven up by Janet Evanovich
8. hard eight by janet evanovich
9. Daring to Hope by Katie Davis Majors

10. To the nines by Janet Evanovich

jeninco

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #275 on: March 16, 2018, 09:49:57 AM »
Quote from: jeninco on March 04, 2018, 09:52:22 PM
1. An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sachs
2. Song of the Quarkbeast, Fford
3. David and Goliath, Gladwell
4. Why Buddhism is True, Wright
5. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain
6. B is for Burglar, Sue Grafton
7. Siddhartha, Hesse
8. Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, Harari
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime,  Haddon. Talked about this with a high school student on my way out of tutoring last week, and grabbed it to (re-) read so I can ask him about it more next week. Love it!
10. Glass Houses (librarian recommendation when I asked for something lightweight)
11. Lavinia, Le Guin
12. Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card (Yuck)
13. Debt Free U (I liked it! Lots of good ideas and perspective in here.)
14. Fledgling, Octavia Butler (loved it!)
15. How to Tame a Fox, Dugakin (also very good, especially in tandem with #14)

Now I have the rest of the month for Lab Girl...

FireHiker

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #276 on: March 16, 2018, 10:26:57 AM »
1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson
3. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
4. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (re-read in one night since it's been 20 years and my son was reading it in school)
8. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
9. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
10. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
11. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
12. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
13. All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare (I WILL get through his complete works...eventually)
14. As You Like It by William Shakespeare
15. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
16. Here in Berlin by Cristina Garcia

17. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I really, really liked The Shadow of the Wind, which I just finished last night. What an interesting book. Easily one of the best books I've read in awhile!

Rosy

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #277 on: March 16, 2018, 05:27:07 PM »
1. Four Weddings and a Sixpence by Julia Quinn ...
2. Elites of Eden by Joey Graceffa
3. Children of Exile by Margaret Peterson Haddix
4. Children of Refuge
5. Heartless by Mary Balogh
6. Son by Lois Lowry
7. Lady Sophia's Lover by Lisa Kleypas
8. Lady of Sin by Madeline Hunter
9. A Precious Jewel by Mary Balogh
10. A Secret Affair by Mary Balogh
11. Nine Rules to Break when Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean
12. Only Enchanting by Mary Balogh
13. Only a Kiss by Mary Balogh
14. Irresistible by Mary Balogh

15. The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch - Part of a Fantasy Series - Curious mixture of brilliant insightfulness, heavy use of base cuss words, easy-flowing adventure dialog with clever stories and an entire archaic play a la Shakespeare alongside the adventure story. Enjoyed it even though it was a tough read at times, but will not read another book by this author - even though I greatly enjoyed the storyline.

16. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - I read this eons ago and it always stayed with me - re-reading was just as good - food for thought.
17. The Inheritance by Charles Finch - Fun read - historic setting, quintessentially British, leisurely developed mystery.

18. A Summer To Remember by Mary Balogh - love historical romances by Mary Balogh.
21. Armada by Ernest Cline - YA - fantasy-sci-fi - OK for YA
22. Sweet Ruin - by Kresley Cole - lots of steamy sex scenes, good Fantasy plot and a little bit of other world development. Fun at first but the soft porn aspect killed it for me.
23. Pleasure of a Dark Prince by Kresley Cole - same as above.
24. MacRieve by Kresley Cole - same as above.
These three are part of the Immortal Series - wish he/she would write more plot, less sex. Not reading anything else by this author.
25. The Wicked Duke by Madeline Hunter - forgot I read this one before - I like all Madeline Hunter historical romances.
27. The Temporary Wife by Mary Baloght - loved it
28. A Promise of Spring by Mary Balogh - loved it
29. Truthwitch by Susan Dennard - first book in a series - pretty good
30. Knave of Hearts by Elizabeth Boyle - enjoyed it
33. Unforgiven by Mary Balogh - fun read


SUBSET - Money and/or Finance/Economics/Politics/Society/Science (goal of 15 books)
19. How to Retire with Enough Money by Theresa Ghilarducci - interesting read. Discusses social security and medicare/medicaid in some detail, but in an abstract economic sense. Discusses the economic disparity in the US a bit and lays out improvements to social security via a link to a proposed bill - good read, good points. 

20. Cheaper, Better, Faster by  Mary Hunt - Excellent Money Saving Tips for household and car buying ... common sense, DIY - worth a read.

26. The Behavior Gap by Carl Richards - Loved it! It is a quasi MMM philosophy seen from a different, kinder angle. The author is engagingly human and utterly relatable - he called it a book about how you can make good money decisions. He is a CFP  ... identify your personal behavior gaps and make a plan to avoid them in the future. No investment advice but a compelling read about our money fears. Insightful - caused me to reflect on several topics. Lighthearted book with a positive vibe - recommended, especially if you struggle with the harsher demands of MMM:)

31. The Unbanking of America by Lisa Servon - fascinating read. I had no idea fintech was so active in this area and had never heard of tandas or ROSCAS.
The subtitle is How the New Middle Class Survives and while I do not agree with all of the conclusions drawn - it revealed just how predatory the banks have become.
I started out on page 121 with - Chapter 7 - Borrowing and Saving under the Radar:) which was one of the best chapters in the book. My only complaint is that since this book is a mix of live research and historic and current data - she should have started out with some of the more interesting live research because I found the first two chapters a tad tedious. 
Overall a rather enlightening book - much better read than I expected!

32. Next up - Nasty women - a collection of essays-protest and solidarity in Trump's America. SKIPPING FOR NOW
34. Second Chance - For Your Money, Your Life and Our World by Robert T. Kiyosaki - reading now


ahptex

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #278 on: March 16, 2018, 05:45:38 PM »
(1) Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
(2) A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
(3) The Water Will Come by Jeff Goodell
(4) Wildwood by Colin Meloy
(5) Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin
(6) Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve by Lenora Chu
(7) Family Matters:Why Homeschooling Makes Sense by David Guterson
(8) Street of Eternal Happiness:  Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road by Rob Schmitz
(9) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
(10) The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
(11) Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits by Pema Chodron
(12) The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin
(13) The Year of Less by Cait Flanders
(14) Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
(15) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
(16) The End of Alzheimer's by Dale Bredesen

(17) Christodora by Tim Murphy

Raenia

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #279 on: March 17, 2018, 09:57:46 AM »
1. The Small-Scale Poultry Flock - Harvey Ussery (1/9/2018)
2. Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson (1/19/2018)
3. The 4-hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss (1/21/2018)
4. Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg (1/23/2018)
5. Home Cheese Making - Ricki Carroll (1/25/2018)
6. A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab (1/26/2018)
7. Dead of Winter - Matt Lake, Susan Fair, Laurie Hull, H.W. Lawson, Brian Goodman (1/27/2018)
8. Coraline - Neil Gaiman (1/30/2018)
9. The Not So Big House - Sarah Susanka (2/5/2018)
10. Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (2/21/2018)
11. Purity - Jonathan Franzen (2/22/2018)
12.  Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville (2/27/2018)
13. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (3/4/2018)
14. Running & Being: The Total Experience - George Sheehan (3/7/2018)
15. Leviathan Wakes - James S.A. Corey (3/10/2018)

16. Plato's Republic - trans. C. D. C. Reeve (3/17/2018)

ahptex

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #280 on: March 18, 2018, 06:51:01 PM »
(1) Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
(2) A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
(3) The Water Will Come by Jeff Goodell
(4) Wildwood by Colin Meloy
(5) Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin
(6) Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve by Lenora Chu
(7) Family Matters:Why Homeschooling Makes Sense by David Guterson
(8) Street of Eternal Happiness:  Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road by Rob Schmitz
(9) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
(10) The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
(11) Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits by Pema Chodron
(12) The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin
(13) The Year of Less by Cait Flanders
(14) Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
(15) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
(16) The End of Alzheimer's by Dale Bredesen
(17) Christodora by Tim Murphy

(18) How Democracies Die: What History Reveals about our Future by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

WorkingStiffABC

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #281 on: March 18, 2018, 07:41:54 PM »
Long time lurker whom was really inspired by the challenge in 2017. Started in June and finished 37.

For 2018, I am targeting only computer science and coding--as I am inspired to change my life:

1. The Annotated Turing - Petzgold 1.14.2018
2. System Thinking: A Primer - Meadows 1.16.2018
3. The Mythical Man Month - Brooks 1.17.2018
4. Humble Programmer - Dykstra 1.19.2018 (This one was a tease--I am now aware that there are tons more whitepapers to leap down the worm hole!
5. Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby - Stiff 1.20.2018

6. Bite of Python - Swaroop 1.28.2018 (Gentle introduction to Python)
7. The Design of Everyday Things - Norman 2.8.2018 (Wish the photos were in color...)
8. Timeless Way of Building - Alexander 2.22.2018 (Easy to understand the parallelism between architecture and design patterns in programming.)
9. The Art of Deception - Mitnick 3.3.2018
10. Hackers and Painters - Graham 3.14.2018
11. The Cathedral and Bizaar - Raymond 3.17.2018 (Open source; I'm inspired.)
12. Getting Real - 37 Signals 3.17.2018

On pace for hitting this 2018 goal but battling not being distracted by books unrelated to coding/computers...

haypug16

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #282 on: March 19, 2018, 08:00:21 AM »
1. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood - Finished 1/14/18
2. How to Make Your Money Last by Jane Bryant Quinn - Finished 1/16/18
3. Animal Farm by George Orwell - Finished 1/20/18
4. The Awakening by Kate Chopin - Finished 2/7/18
5. J is for Judgement by Sue Grafton - Finished 2/9/18
6. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins - Finished 2/20/18
7. K is for Killer by Sue Grafton - Finished 3/17/18

8. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne - Currently Reading
9. Devil in the White City by Erik Larson - Currently Reading

woopwoop

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #283 on: March 19, 2018, 03:19:06 PM »
1. Cane River - this was for a book club, which is the only reason I finished it. Five hundred pages of depressing slavery historical fiction, ranging from super depressing slave rape and torture to slightly-less-depressing institutional racism by the end of the saga. Would not recommend.
2. The Road Less Traveled - this is a psychology cult classic from the 70s that's fun to read. In one chapter he mentions in a footnote that "the only healthy marriage is an open marriage." Lol, the seventies were awesome.
3. Down Among the Sticks and Bones - a well-written and darkly funny YA fantasy novella. Think CS Lewis with vampires.
4. The Hating Game - this was just a bubble gum contemporary romcom about a love-hate-love relationship. Super fast and sexy read, recommended as a nice beach read if you like romance.
5. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue - How did I end up reading so much YA at the beginning of this year? I don't even particularly like YA, these were all recommended to me. This was a fun romp of pirates and highwaymen and gay interracial relationships in the 1800s, but it was very very YA. I can't even put my finger on what "Very YA" means, but whatever it was, this book was that. My next read is YA, too, then I think I'm done for a while. I think it's the quirkiness that gets me. Everyone is so goddamn quirky in YA books.
6. Jane Unlimited - ugh, another YA, this one with a quirky main character who makes artsy umbrellas. Four mentions of Doctor Who in the first half of the book, how weird and nerdy lolol!!! I'm so done with YA.
7. Dead Wake - okay, this one is historical fiction about the Lusitania. I don't know history so this is always good for me. Plus Erik Larsen is the tits, this was a guaranteed Good Book after my latest string of failures. This book is not quite as good as his epicly awesome Devil in the White City that I love love loved, but it's still good and suspenseful.
8.The Duke and I - Regency romance, definitely more erotic than Jane Austen. Fun and light but not particularly great. Recommended all over the place as one of the best contemporary-written regency romances, which probably means I just don't really like this genre. I love Jane Austen, though, oh well.
9.Paris To the Moon - Another French travelogue about an American moving his family to Paris. Funny, well-written, but not epically hilarious like my favorite of this genre, Toujours Provence.
10. Drop the Ball - nonfiction, about how women need to stop trying to do it all. Kind of a companion book to Lean In, which I also didn't like. This book just feels repetitive. It did get my husband and I to make a spreadsheet for our grocery lists, though.
11. A Man Called Ove - another book club read, I guess it was a movie? Anyway, it made me ugly cry at the end although the opening chapters were hard for me to get into. Old grumpy man inspirational lit, I would classify it.
12. The Artist's Way - I am not in the right spot to get into this kind of book, in that I have a toddler and would love to do "morning pages" but it's clear from the way this author writes that she cannot imagine not having alone time every day. Well, bully for her. I'll pick this back up in a few years.
13. Designs for Living and Learning - really great book about childhood learning environments. Gave me a bunch to think about as I create living spaces for my young toddler.
14. Voyage  -a play by Tom Stoppard that's a witty sendup of every Russian play from the greats. Lots of philosophizing and wordplay, but not nearly as entertaining as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which everyone should read (and watch the movie version!) if they have ever read Hamlet. For you Game of Thrones fans out there, Jorah is Hamlet, and that should seal the deal. He also wrote Shakespeare in Love which was a fun screenplay.
15. Chrysalis - nonfiction, an account of female naturalist Maria Meriam. The book I'm writing is going to have a main character named after her, so I thought I'd do some research. Really interesting so far, she was a gifted artist and scientist back when science was stuck more in naming and classifying rather than experimenting. Makes me excited to write my book!
16. The Kingmaker's Daughter - historical fiction by the same woman who wrote The Other Boleyn Girl which I loved. This was a great book, made even greater by the fact that I don't know any history at all. What will happen to Anne and Richard? I don't know, it's a mystery! Makes reading historical fiction all the better, imo.
16b. The Shadow of the Wind - I... really didn't like this. I didn't even finish it, so that's why it's going on the list as 16b. Just awful, pretentious writing. Maybe it's the translation? I had high hopes and a lot of people recommended it, but I found it utterly lacking.
17. The Refrigerator Monologues - On recommendation by this thread. I didn't really care for this one, maybe because I don't know an awful lot about comics. Most of the characters had the same voice, there weren't any great new perspectives. I dunno, I might have been in the wrong frame of mind for this.
18. The Whole-Brain Child - Some really good suggestions for how to handle parenting decisions, based on brain science of developing children. Some of it was for older kids so not quite as useful, but a lot of excellent practical advice for toddler meltdowns, etc. We have been lucky so far with our kid (not quite 2!) but I'm sure she'll be testing our patience soon enough so I want to be prepared.
19. Transatlantic - Another historical fiction about Ireland, transatlantic flight, Frederick Douglass, and some other things that are not really interesting to me. Also the author uses way too many. Sentence fragments. For dramatic effect. And I'm sick of it.

Urchina

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #284 on: March 19, 2018, 05:47:44 PM »
1. - How not to die by Michael Greger md. Book espousing a plant-based (vegan) diet.
2 - Now that you mention it by Kristan Higgins - more romance!
3 - Unprocessed by Megan Kimble. A thoughtful "year-of" book in which she eats only unprocessed food for 12th months, and uses it as a vehicle for discovery and discussion about our food systems.
4 - My year of less by Cait Flanders (audiobook). Another "year-of" book in which the author documents her year of a shopping ban. A thoughtful and sometimes heart-wrenching exploration of our urges to consume and how to find balance despite them. I'm going to adapt this approach for Lent this year.
5 - The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. Fun, Victorian/steampunk/magic book about a plucky, sassy protagonist Librarian who works for the Library and rescues books from alternate worlds. First in a promising series.
6 - On Second Thought by Krista Higgins (more romance)
7 - Redshirts by John Scalzi. Odd take on televised sci-fi series and characters with different lives in alternate realities. Quirky and fun.
8 - Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. (Audiobook) Focuses on the unconscious snap judgements and decisions that shape our lives.
9 - The New One Minute Manager by Blanchard and Johnson. (Audiobook). The classic, updated. Much of this seems trite but that is probably because management styles have evolved significantly in the past few decades. This is a short book that provides an anecdotal structure for simple and effective people management.
10 - The Art of War by Sun Tzu (Audiobook). Talk about a tiny book that packs a LOT into very few words. May win "most concisely comprehensive treatise on a complicated subject ever" award. Bears multiple readings and significant study, which I will probably not give it -- but this could be a book to spend a lifetime on.
11 - The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. Yet again, a book has made me realize that I. Know. Nothing about the rest of the world and its literary or cultural history. Nothing. Worth the time reading just for that. However, it's an excellent story in its own right and well-told. Recommend.
12 - Someone to Love by Mary Balogh. #1 in the Westcott series. Enjoyable junk food for my recreational pleasure.
13 - Good Clean Fun by Nick Offerman. The comedian writes a paean to his live of woodworking and highlights individuals he deems worthy of note. (Audiobook)
14 - The Now Habit by Neil Fiore, PhD (Audiobook). To be fair, I did not complete this book, so perhaps it is utterly redeemed only if you make it through to the end. But 75% of the way through I felt that I had spent way too much of my time on this book for functionally no benefit -- it felt like outdated 90's pop psychology. I finally threw in the towel today, something I rarely do with books, and decided to reclaim my life. Moving on...

bucketsofrain

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #285 on: March 19, 2018, 06:04:14 PM »
1.) Gorilla and the Bird by Zack McDermott
2.) The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
3.) Iza's Ballad by Magda Szabo
4.) The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
5.) You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie
6.) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
7.) A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
8.) My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris
9.) Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
10.) Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
11.) We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
12.) Red Winter by Anneli Furmark
13.) Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
14.) Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson
15.) We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
16.) What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi
17.) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
18.) This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
19.) This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
20.) A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

FireHiker

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #286 on: March 20, 2018, 10:37:19 AM »
1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson
3. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
4. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (re-read in one night since it's been 20 years and my son was reading it in school)
8. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
9. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
10. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
11. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
12. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
13. All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare (I WILL get through his complete works...eventually)
14. As You Like It by William Shakespeare
15. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
16. Here in Berlin by Cristina Garcia
17. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

18. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

tnrunner

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #287 on: March 21, 2018, 07:05:35 AM »
1. Two for the Dough by Janet Evanovich
2. Three to get deadly by Janet Evanovich
3. Four to Score by Janet Evanovich
4. Seamless by Angie Smith
5. High Five by Janet Evanovich
6. Hot six by Janet Evanovich
7. Seven up by Janet Evanovich
8. hard eight by janet evanovich
9. Daring to Hope by Katie Davis Majors
10. To the nines by Janet Evanovich

11. Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich

formerlydivorcedmom

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #288 on: March 21, 2018, 09:01:23 AM »
Fiction[/u]
1) How to Lose a Bride in One Night                    Sophie Jordan
2) Viking Unchained                                            Sandra Hill
3) The Tattoeed Duke                                            Maya Rodale
4) Chasing Christmas Eve                                    Jill Shalvis
5) The Pleasures of Passion                                    Sabrina Jeffries
6) Burning Up                                                    Susan Anderson
7) Promise Not to Tell                                             Jayne Ann Krentz
8) In Scandal They Wed                                     Sophie Jordan
9) One Night With You                                     Sophie Jordan
10) Surrender to Me                                             Sophie Jordan
11) Too Wicked to Tame                                     Sophie Jordan
12) The Heir and The Spare                             Maya Rodale
13) A Groom of One's Own                                     Maya Rodale
14) The Rogue and the Rival                             Maya Rodale
15) Wallflower Gone Wild                                     Maya Rodale   
16) What a Wallflower Wants                             Maya Rodale   
17) The Wicked Wallflower                                     Maya Rodale
18) A Tale of Two Lovers                                     Maya Rodale   
19) The Brat                                                     Lynsey Sands
20)   The Key   Lynsay Sands
21)   The Perfect Wife   Lynsay Sands
22)   Animal Magnetism   Susan Anderson
23)   Animal Attraction   Susan Anderson
24)   Love is Blind   Lynsay Sands
25) The Wedding Girl   Madeleine Wickham
26) The Chase   Lynsay Sands
27) The Deed   Lynsay Sands
28) Prisoner of My Desire   Johanna Lindsey - This is my annual reread of this book.  The cover is now falling off; I think I've read it more than 30 times.

Nonfiction
1) Her majesty : Queen Elizabeth II and her court                                   Robert Hardman    - Very interesting look at what goes on behind the scenes in the palace; dated
2) On Royalty: A Very Polite Inquiry into some Strangely Related Families   Jeremy Paxman
3) Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor                                   Anne Edwards
4) Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley                           Alison Weir  -  This book should have been cut in half. 577 pages was absolutely ridiculous - and Darnley died on page about 300.
5) Material World: A Global Family Portrait                                                   Peter Menzel - My kids read part of this with me.  It was a wonderful look at how similar and different families are across the world (as of 25 years ago).  I'd love to see this updated.
6) The Queen Mother:  The Untold Story of Elizabeth Bowes Lyon who Became Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother   by Lady Colin Campbell - This was a gossipy, meandering, name-dropping book I wish I hadn't read.
7) The Private Lives of the Tudors by Tracy Borman
8) It's All Relative by A.J. Jacobs - This was a really funny look at genealogy research.
9) Dave Barry's Money Matters   Dave Barry - I love Dave Barry.  This was a funny basic look at personal finance
10) The $1,000 Challenge   Brian J. O'Connor - I enjoyed this book, but I didn't get a lot out of practical advice out of it.
11) Half-Price Living: Living Well on One Income   Ellie Kay - Ugh.  Half of it is heavy-handed trying to convince moms to stay home with their kids (along the lines of "every family has to make the right choice for themselves...BUT").  The other half is trite advice that wouldn't actually help most people who want to live on one income.
12) Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending   Elizabeth Dunn - This is a really good book about the types of spending that make people happy, and how reframing certain decisions around spending can increase happiness.  They discuss in detail a lot of the psychology experiments that were run to reach these conclusions. It's an easy read.
13) Jeannie out of the Bottle   Barbara Eden - It's a good memoir, but she rambles around in time.  There's not a lot of salaciousness; she comes across as a grounded, kind woman.

in progress:
Unstoppable by Bill Nye - This is about climate change.  It's a well written book with a lot of information, but it is dense.  I can only read about 20 pages before I have to stop and let it digest.



« Last Edit: March 21, 2018, 09:29:28 AM by formerlydivorcedmom »

Raenia

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #289 on: March 21, 2018, 09:05:17 AM »
1. The Small-Scale Poultry Flock - Harvey Ussery (1/9/2018)
2. Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson (1/19/2018)
3. The 4-hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss (1/21/2018)
4. Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg (1/23/2018)
5. Home Cheese Making - Ricki Carroll (1/25/2018)
6. A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab (1/26/2018)
7. Dead of Winter - Matt Lake, Susan Fair, Laurie Hull, H.W. Lawson, Brian Goodman (1/27/2018)
8. Coraline - Neil Gaiman (1/30/2018)
9. The Not So Big House - Sarah Susanka (2/5/2018)
10. Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (2/21/2018)
11. Purity - Jonathan Franzen (2/22/2018)
12.  Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville (2/27/2018)
13. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (3/4/2018)
14. Running & Being: The Total Experience - George Sheehan (3/7/2018)
15. Leviathan Wakes - James S.A. Corey (3/10/2018)
16. Plato's Republic - trans. C. D. C. Reeve (3/17/2018)

17. The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem - Nathaniel Branden (3/21/2018)

haypug16

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #290 on: March 21, 2018, 10:32:19 AM »
1. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood - Finished 1/14/18
2. How to Make Your Money Last by Jane Bryant Quinn - Finished 1/16/18
3. Animal Farm by George Orwell - Finished 1/20/18
4. The Awakening by Kate Chopin - Finished 2/7/18
5. J is for Judgement by Sue Grafton - Finished 2/9/18
6. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins - Finished 2/20/18
7. K is for Killer by Sue Grafton - Finished 3/17/18
8. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne - Finished 3/21/18

9. Devil in the White City by Erik Larson - Currently Reading
10. L is for Lawless by Sue Grafton - Currently Reading

Melisande

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #291 on: March 22, 2018, 08:45:11 AM »
1. The World As I Found It by Bruce Duffy
2. The Girl with a Pearl Earing by Tracy Chevalier
3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
4. & 5.  Mémoires d’Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
6. In the Land of the White Death by Valerian Albanov
7. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
8., 9. & 10. Churchill: A Biography by Roy Jenkins
11. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline.
12. The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
13. Conquistador Voices: Volume 1 — Christopher Columbus; Hernán Cortés, by Kevin H. Siepel.
14. Conquistador Voices: Volume 2 — Francisco Pizarro and his brothers; Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca; Hernando de Soto by Kevin H. Siepel
15. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles .
15. & 16. La carte et le territoire by Michel Houellebecq. I’m counting this as two books since it is in French and over 400 pages long. This novel won France’s Prix Goncourt (prize for the best & most original novel published in France) in 2010. I found it engrossing and strange. It offers lots of philosophical discussion on art, architecture, photography, the art world, the art market, the “science” of economics, economics in general. All that and father-son relationships. It shifts genres about half-way through becoming a thriller/detective story (complete with new main characters) when one of the main characters is murdered in a particularly horrific (yet somewhat artistic) manner. Stranger still, the character who was murdered was the “author” of the novel, or the fictional persona of the author (his name is Michel Houellebecq and is a well-known French author who has written the works the real-life Houellebecq has written). After the murder is solveld, the book shifts back again to being an art-philosophical novel.

This is the kind of book that would seemingly reward re-reading. “La Carte et le territoire” means “the map and the territory”— in other words — representation and reality or representative artefact and natural phenomenon. And, sure, enough the novel seems to work through this opposition on quite a few levels. In addition to the above-mentioned embedding and killing off of the “author,” there is also the artistic trajectory of the main character Jed who begins his career photographing instustrial objects and ends it many years later by creating strange montages of similar objects being eaten away by vegetation. So, there is a lot to unpack/interpret. But it’s not something I want to re-read immediately.

FireHiker

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #292 on: March 22, 2018, 11:33:05 AM »
1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson
3. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
4. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (re-read in one night since it's been 20 years and my son was reading it in school)
8. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
9. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
10. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
11. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
12. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
13. All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare (I WILL get through his complete works...eventually)
14. As You Like It by William Shakespeare
15. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
16. Here in Berlin by Cristina Garcia
17. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
18. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

19. Meet the Frugalwoods by Elizabeth Willard Thames

I know there's been some criticism of the Frugalwoods over in the general forum lately. I loved the book. I did check it out from the library as an ebook instead of buying it though. I have SO many similarities on the perfectionist/over-planner side. It was entertaining to me to see it in someone else! Also, I love her prose full of big vocabulary words, so that didn't turn me off at all, although I acknowledge that is not for everyone. And finally, I am the target demographic: high earner in the corporate hamster wheel not finding satisfaction with the day to day career. Her blog is the first one I read in the chain that ultimately led me here to MMM and made me begin to question everything in the modern consumerist lifestyle. We still have a HUGE amount of progress to make before I can claim we are actually "frugal", but the fact that we have made so many steps in the right direction already is largely to due finding her blog in the first place.

Serendip

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #293 on: March 22, 2018, 12:04:10 PM »

15. & 16. La carte et le territoire by Michel Houellebecq. I’m counting this as two books since it is in French and over 400 pages long. This novel won France’s Prix Goncourt (prize for the best & most original novel published in France) in 2010. I found it engrossing and strange. It offers lots of philosophical discussion on art, architecture, photography, the art world, the art market, the “science” of economics, economics in general. All that and father-son relationships. It shifts genres about half-way through becoming a thriller/detective story (complete with new main characters) when one of the main characters is murdered in a particularly horrific (yet somewhat artistic) manner. Stranger still, the character who was murdered was the “author” of the novel, or the fictional persona of the author (his name is Michel Houellebecq and is a well-known French author who has written the works the real-life Houellebecq has written). After the murder is solveld, the book shifts back again to being an art-philosophical novel.

This is the kind of book that would seemingly reward re-reading. “La Carte et le territoire” means “the map and the territory”— in other words — representation and reality or representative artefact and natural phenomenon. And, sure, enough the novel seems to work through this opposition on quite a few levels. In addition to the above-mentioned embedding and killing off of the “author,” there is also the artistic trajectory of the main character Jed who begins his career photographing instustrial objects and ends it many years later by creating strange montages of similar objects being eaten away by vegetation. So, there is a lot to unpack/interpret. But it’s not something I want to re-read immediately.

This sounds fascinating--albeit convoluted @Melisande!  Wish I spoke French :)

1. Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment (Robert Wright) *IMO very good!
2. Plastic Free : How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too (Beth Terry)
3. Taking the Leap : Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears (Pema Chodron)
4. Sapiens : A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Hurari)

5. Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement (Katy Bowman)
6. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (Margareta Magnusson)
7. The Year of Less  (Cait Flanders)
 *more personal drama than I expected, I thought it would be about her no-shopping challenge

8. The Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection (Scott C. Anderson) *quite liked this, neuroscience and food
9. Why Isn't My Brain Working: Brain decline and effective strategies to recover your brain's health ( Datis Kharrazian)
10. The Back of the Turtle (Thomas King)

11. The War of Art  (Steven Pressfield)
12. Millionaire Teacher: The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School (Andrew Hallam)
13. Homo Deus : A Brief History of Tomorrow (Yuval Noah Harari)

14. Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression--and the Unexpected Solutions (Johann Hari)
15. Spark : The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain  (John J. Ratey)
16. Tonglen: The Path of Transformation (Pema Chodron)--a more advanced meditation style than I am currently at

17. The Hate U Give (Angie Thomas)
18. When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing (Daniel. H. Pink)

19. The Transformational Power of Fasting (Stephan Harrod Buhner)
20. The Power of Eight (Lynne McTaggart)--a friend wanted me to read this but I am not loving it..too woo-woo, even though I love woo-woo
21. In Every Moment We Are Still Alive : A novel (Tom Malmquist)
22. How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World (Harry Browne) Just started-- recommended by someone on this forum

grantmeaname

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #294 on: March 22, 2018, 12:08:39 PM »
19. Meet the Frugalwoods by Elizabeth Willard Thames

I know there's been some criticism of the Frugalwoods over in the general forum lately. I loved the book. I did check it out from the library as an ebook instead of buying it though. I have SO many similarities on the perfectionist/over-planner side. It was entertaining to me to see it in someone else! Also, I love her prose full of big vocabulary words, so that didn't turn me off at all, although I acknowledge that is not for everyone. And finally, I am the target demographic: high earner in the corporate hamster wheel not finding satisfaction with the day to day career. Her blog is the first one I read in the chain that ultimately led me here to MMM and made me begin to question everything in the modern consumerist lifestyle. We still have a HUGE amount of progress to make before I can claim we are actually "frugal", but the fact that we have made so many steps in the right direction already is largely to due finding her blog in the first place.

The vitriol has mostly been confined to the "Welcome and General Discussion" thread. Come to the book club - our thread is much more sedate.

FireHiker

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #295 on: March 22, 2018, 12:55:59 PM »
The vitriol has mostly been confined to the "Welcome and General Discussion" thread. Come to the book club - our thread is much more sedate.

Thanks for the link! I didn't realize there was a book club thread...I'll go check it out!

Melisande

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #296 on: March 22, 2018, 01:38:00 PM »

15. & 16. La carte et le territoire by Michel Houellebecq. I’m counting this as two books since it is in French and over 400 pages long. This novel won France’s Prix Goncourt (prize for the best & most original novel published in France) in 2010. I found it engrossing and strange. It offers lots of philosophical discussion on art, architecture, photography, the art world, the art market, the “science” of economics, economics in general. All that and father-son relationships. It shifts genres about half-way through becoming a thriller/detective story (complete with new main characters) when one of the main characters is murdered in a particularly horrific (yet somewhat artistic) manner. Stranger still, the character who was murdered was the “author” of the novel, or the fictional persona of the author (his name is Michel Houellebecq and is a well-known French author who has written the works the real-life Houellebecq has written). After the murder is solveld, the book shifts back again to being an art-philosophical novel.

This is the kind of book that would seemingly reward re-reading. “La Carte et le territoire” means “the map and the territory”— in other words — representation and reality or representative artefact and natural phenomenon. And, sure, enough the novel seems to work through this opposition on quite a few levels. In addition to the above-mentioned embedding and killing off of the “author,” there is also the artistic trajectory of the main character Jed who begins his career photographing instustrial objects and ends it many years later by creating strange montages of similar objects being eaten away by vegetation. So, there is a lot to unpack/interpret. But it’s not something I want to re-read immediately.

This sounds fascinating--albeit convoluted @Melisande!  Wish I spoke French :)



There’s an edition in English entitled The Map and the Territory, but I don’t know how good the translation is.

bucketsofrain

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #297 on: March 22, 2018, 06:56:15 PM »
1.) Gorilla and the Bird by Zack McDermott
2.) The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
3.) Iza's Ballad by Magda Szabo
4.) The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
5.) You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie
6.) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
7.) A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
8.) My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris
9.) Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
10.) Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
11.) We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
12.) Red Winter by Anneli Furmark
13.) Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
14.) Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson
15.) We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
16.) What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi
17.) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
18.) This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
19.) This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
20.) A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
21.) The Vegetarian by Han Kang
22.) The Book of Unknown Americans by Christina Henriquez

jeninco

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #298 on: March 23, 2018, 11:36:12 AM »
Quote from: jeninco on March 04, 2018, 09:52:22 PM
1. An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sachs
2. Song of the Quarkbeast, Fford
3. David and Goliath, Gladwell
4. Why Buddhism is True, Wright
5. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain
6. B is for Burglar, Sue Grafton
7. Siddhartha, Hesse
8. Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, Harari
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime,  Haddon. Talked about this with a high school student on my way out of tutoring last week, and grabbed it to (re-) read so I can ask him about it more next week. Love it!
10. Glass Houses (librarian recommendation when I asked for something lightweight)
11. Lavinia, Le Guin
12. Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card (Yuck)
13. Debt Free U (I liked it! Lots of good ideas and perspective in here.)
14. Fledgling, Octavia Butler (loved it!)
15. How to Tame a Fox, Dugakin (also very good, especially in tandem with #14)
16. Lab Girl, Jahren (BJ, I loved it, although I see how various parts could slow one down...)

Next: Borrowed Between the World and Me from my HS junior. We're traveling this weekend, so we'll get to discuss it.
Also:
Grocery, Ruhlman
Where you go is not who you'll be (yeah, we'll be sending a kid to college in a year and a half, so that's a sub-theme for this year)
a Nevada Barr mystery
A Janet Evanovich mystery (#1)

I'm really enjoying the gauntlet -- thanks for setting this up and encouraging, everyone!

Raenia

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #299 on: March 23, 2018, 06:09:15 PM »
1. The Small-Scale Poultry Flock - Harvey Ussery (1/9/2018)
2. Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson (1/19/2018)
3. The 4-hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss (1/21/2018)
4. Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg (1/23/2018)
5. Home Cheese Making - Ricki Carroll (1/25/2018)
6. A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab (1/26/2018)
7. Dead of Winter - Matt Lake, Susan Fair, Laurie Hull, H.W. Lawson, Brian Goodman (1/27/2018)
8. Coraline - Neil Gaiman (1/30/2018)
9. The Not So Big House - Sarah Susanka (2/5/2018)
10. Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (2/21/2018)
11. Purity - Jonathan Franzen (2/22/2018)
12.  Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville (2/27/2018)
13. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (3/4/2018)
14. Running & Being: The Total Experience - George Sheehan (3/7/2018)
15. Leviathan Wakes - James S.A. Corey (3/10/2018)
16. Plato's Republic - trans. C. D. C. Reeve (3/17/2018)
17. The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem - Nathaniel Branden (3/21/2018)

18. Caliban's War - James S.A. Corey (3/23/2018)

Really enjoying this series so far, gotta get my hands on the next one.